ID, 2024, Photoshop
Reproductions: Sticky, 2024, Photoshop
My name is Vivian Ji. I am currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Fine Arts with the Visual and Critical Studies Thesis program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Originally born in Illinois, I was raised in the Bay Area of California. Through classical training in painting, sculpture, and drawing practices, I continue to pursue interdisciplinary practices under the umbrella of Visual Critical Studies. My work centers on my ability to intertwine complex concepts and visual motifs through literal methods. Through the study of layers, notations, and visual cultures, I practice painting, drawing, music, experimental film, writing, multi-media sculpture, and performance.
As a Visual and Critical Studies student, I incorporate my exposure to critical theory and the social systems around me to visually examine the persuasion, revolutionizing, and effectiveness of all genres of visual arts. Integrating academic practice with my ongoing studio practices, I aim to be an artist who seamlessly ties research, theory, and visual language together to create new narratives that challenge the status quo.
My studio practice aims to be a direct reflection of my mind, expanding and deepening my knowledge in a broad base of mediums to answer questions holistically about art. Through direct, raw, and process-aware pieces, the audience is granted an easy entryway into my paintings. While the audience traverses through the painting with me, I explain my story through my process and present a space open to reflection. I apply translucent layers to display a collective historical timeline of my work, forcing the layers to build on one another as they use windows as codes for entryway. I imply the multiplicity of necessary self-portraitures and often display how I subject myself to scrutinizing inspection as the subject of the object of the piece. Through these performative acts of self-display and self-characterization, I open time machines of Unfinished projects, documenting my state here and now to later form a deeper definition of my identity.